SBS news reader Lee Lin Chin has launched into action as the star of a new installment in the Australia Day Lamb advertisement series, aired each January to encourage us to eat lamb on our national day.

Chin spearheads ‘Operation Boomerang’ in the advertisement, a mission launched by lamb-lovers to bring back Australians all over the world who won’t be able to eat lamb come January 26.

“Warsaw, winter, ‘96. Minus 17. And not a chargrilled chop in sight. That was no way to spend Australia Day,” Chin says in the opening of the video.

“We’ll never let that happen to another Australian again.”

A series of action-packed scenes then depicts lamb operatives travelling the world over to ‘rescue’ Aussies in Japan, England, and Bali. Along the way they pick up fast bowler Mitchell Johnson, Australian rugby captain Stephen Moore, and a Princess Mary stand-in in a bid to bring them back to the sunburnt country for a chop or two.

The advert joins a long line of films produced by Meat and Livestock Australia aimed at encouraging us to chow down on lamb.

“This year we want to remind all Australians to get together with loved ones and friends to celebrate what Australia Day is all about -- sharing some delicious lamb on the barbie.”

The Australia Day lamb ads are no stranger to controversy. After the first debuted in 2005, wherein former AFL player, media personality, and lamb fanatic Sam Kekovich delivered a tongue-in-cheek lambasting of vegetarians as un-Australian, it was the subject of complaints to the Advertising Standards Bureau from non-meat-eaters who described it as discriminatory.

Kekovich argued then, for the first time but not the last, that an Australian day diet should consist of “a few nice juicy lamb chops and beer.”

"Yet your long-haired, dole-bludging types are indulging their pierced taste buds in all manner of exotic, foreign, often vegetarian cuisine - chicken burger value meals, pizzas, a No 42 with rice,” he said in the video.

"It's an absolute disgrace, and people ask why we need capital punishment."

Over the years, the advertisements have become more and more grandiose. Last year, Meat and Livestock Australia enlisted the help of the late great Richie Benaud to pull together a BBQ of iconic Australians -- from Captain Cook and Ned Kelly through to Ita Buttrose -- for the 2015 advert.

Many would argue Lee Lin Chin is an Australian icon in her own right too -- at least on Twitter, where she’s busy handing out burns left and right to sycophantic followers and sending sass into cyberspace.

New Years resolution: keep doing what I'm doing. I'm fabulous and can't get any better #happynewyear